The Auswine Forum

I have been offered some US Zinfandels, all from Seghesio Wines in California, but from different vineyards and vintages. I've only tried a few aussie Zins, Cape Mentelle 2001 and a 2002 Kangarilla Road, both of which I enjoyed quite a lot.
VinoDiversity lists about 60 Australian Zin producers and I was wondering if there was anyone out there who could give me their impressions on the Zin as a wine and provide some guidance on the aussie ones to go for. I will probably go ahead and buy a few of the US Zins, just so I've got some, but am interested in exploring the aussie version as well.
Cheers,
Bob.

The best Aussie zins I have had are the Kabminye and Cape Mentelle.

smidge wines, the tardy, langhorne creek zin. Best aussie zin I have tried.

Peel Estate, the biggest baddest most feral on the block.

Love it.

ChrisV, Tex0403 & Davo,
Thanks for the info, I will follow them up
Cheers,
Bob

I have had some difficulty with Zinfandel, I've never really understood what it's all about until a recent conversation with Rick Glastonbury at Kabminye.
I have never really had the time to learn about US Zin's, or most other imported wines for that matter, there are just too many other Aussie varieties to chase and enjoy.

Many of the Australians seemed to me to be just another wine, I'd tried Cape Mentelle, Nepenthe and Kangarilla Road, all of which are mentioned fairly often, none of them did much for me, probably because I didn't know what I was looking for.

Then at a Fed Square tasting last year I tried a Heathcote Zin from Buckshot, and then I realised there was something to the variety.

Back to my conversation with Rick. He pointed out that the virtue of Zin was the uneven ripening within the bunches. This puts a range of nuances into the wine. Anyway if you need a good big red to drink when the temperature is in the mid forties, as it was in the Barossa during March, my advice is to go for a Kabminye Zin.

Meanwhile I'll have to revisit some of the other Zins and revise the Vinodiversity page.

By the way Smithy of these forums is interested in the variety. I suspect his Zins won't be wines for whimps.

I tried the entry level Seghesio at a tasting last week and it was rubbish - short, hot and with noticeable residual sugar. I would steer well clear of that one. I agree with other sentiments regarding the Kabminye and Darryl Groom also makes a pretty good one out of the Barossa.

I quite like Australian Zins - especially Nepenthe.

However I think that the USA Zins , at the higher level , are superior wines. This is probably due to the fact that they grow a hell of a lot more of it and all you need to do from there is pick the producers who care.

Having said that I don't buy a lot of them as they are usually reasonably expensive - it would be nice if there were more around and given the recently declining value of the US dollar you'd hope they'd be a bit cheaper now too.

I keep at look out at Auction for US Zins. I recently bought a few bottles of Seghesio Sonoma County and it was a very enjoyable drink I thought - can't agree with trentwine there.

Some of the criticisms I've heard from some Australians about US Zins seem to smack of cheap anti-American attitudes rather than any considered judgement of the wines themselves. An attitude strangely similar to that of some the worst of the "Old World" critics who think Australia can't make great wines.

Coincidentally had a 2004 Kangarilla Rd Fleurieu Zinfandel last night which at under $20 is not a bad entry level example.